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SOLDIERS OF THE 



LIGHT 

BY 

HELEN GRAY CONE 




BOSTON 

RICHARD G. BADGER 

THE GORHAM PRESS 
I9II 






Copyright, 1910, by Helen Gray Cone 



All Rights Reserved 









Many of the poems included in this volume are 
used through the courteous permission of the edi- 
tors of The Century Magazine, The Churchman, 
The Atlantic Monthly, and Scribners Magazine, 
where they originally appeared. 



The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 



©CI.A27S046 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Soldiers of the Light 5 

The Third Day at Gettysburg 7 

Abraham Lincoln: February 12, 1909 33 

Greencastle Jenny: A Ballad of 'Sixty-Three 38 

By the Blockhouse on the Hill: A Ballad of 

'Ninety-Eight 40 

The Admiral's Story 42 

Death After War 45 

The Riddle of Wreck 46 

The Common Street 47 

Calnan's Christmas 48 

Guion 50 

Poverty Row 52 

The Inn of the Star 54 

Marina Sings 55 

The King's Diamond 58 

Death-Tryst 61 

The Iris-Bridge 63 

Desire of Fame 64 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Rose-Rent 65 

The Frigate-Ghost 66 

Fair England 69 

To the Memory of Richard Watson Gilder. . 71 



"Why of War, O thou that lovest rather 
Peace of roses in a rain-sweet garden, 
Peace of moonlit silver-heaving waters, 
All the lovely looks of little children? 

What strange mandate 
Bids thee sing of War, who lovest these things? 

"How of War, O faint-heart, thou that grievest 

Over every gentle creature wounded, 

All soft eyes of pain and puzzled sorrow, 

All the lithe limbs marred, the wild wings broken? 

What black magic 
Makes thee brood on War, who dreadest these 
things? 

"Is it but the haunting of the bugles, 
Floating memories of the war-time bugles 
Blowing over those far fields of childhood, 
Pleasant in the foolish ear of childhood, 

When the sword-hilt 
Seemed but made to shine and hold a jewel?" 

Then the inward Voice that gave the mandate, — - 
Bade me sing of battle, — bade me answer: 
Well I know the symbol of the sword-hilt, 
Know the Cross of sacrifice and service; 

See the heart's-blood 
Burning where the child beheld the jewel. 

I have hated with the perfect hatred 
All the work of Hell in all the ages; 
Hated all the hate and all the horror; 
Yet the Vision of the Face of faces, 

God-in-Manhood, 
Shines through Hell, and I have seen the Vision. 



In this rubric, lo, the Past is lettered: 
Strike the red words out, we strike the glory. 
Leave the sacred color on the pages, 
Pages of the Past that teach the Future. 

On that scripture 
Yet shall young souls take the oath of service. 

God end War! but when brute War is ended t 
Yet there shall be many a noble soldier, 
Many a noble battle worth the winning, 
Many a hopeless battle worth the losing. 

Life is battle, 
Life is battle, even to the sunset. 

Soldiers of the Light shall strive forever, 

In the wards of pain, the ways of labor, 

In the stony deserts of the city, 

In the hives where greed has housed the helpless, 

Patient, valiant, 
Fighting with the powers of death and darkness. 

Make us mingle in that heavenly warfare; 
Call us through the throats of all brave bugles 
Blown on fields foregone by lips forgotten; 
Nerve us with the courage of lost comrades, 

Gird us, lead us, 
Thou, O Prince of Peace and God of Battles! 



THE THIRD DAY AT GETTYSBURG 
I 

Stand we awhile at gaze, in the Place of the Bat- 
tle of Battles: 

High on the hill at the south, where over the fair- 
lying farmland 

Warren keeps watch in bronze, here under the sky 
of the summer 

Stand we awhile at gaze, far-scanning the roads and 
the ridges, 

Doubtful that such things were. 

Oh, sweet with the wafts of the wildrose, 

Sweet is the breath of the summer, the hushed spirit 
lapping and lulling! 

Man feels near to the kind red earth; as her nurs- 
ling she draws him 

Close, ah close, to the fragrant warmth of her In- 
dian bosom. 

Deep he drinks of life; and death is a dream in the 
distance. 

Rare is the sweet of the summer; the good world's 
bounty and beauty 

Such as they saw and lost, who bought us our 
peace with their passion. 

Such, on the great Three Days of the great Third 
Year of the war-time, 

Lay this pleasant land, with the long South Moun- 
tain to westward; 

Blue these billowing hills circled it, friendly en- 
folded, 

Lucent in sun, or dark with the shadows of clouds 
floating over; 

7 



Silvered with ghostly gray of the rains, in their 

soft-footed marches 
Melting away and passing, and leaving the blue in 

the sunlight. 
So the farmland lay, with the yellow gleam of its 

wheatfields, 
Green of the standing corn, a-glisten in beauteous 

battalions, 
Pastures with dreaming cattle, and tawny streams 

where they loiter, 
Dark-green orchard slopes, and the small white 

houses of farmers. 
So lay the little town, w T ith its brick-paved walks 

and its alleys, 
Garden-glimpses fair, with the faint-blue hills for 

a background, 
Over the whitewashed fences the rosy hollyhocks 

leaning; 
Fate-shadowed, sleeping town, in its listless grasp 

as it slumbered 
Holding the reins of power, the gathered reins of 

the roadways 
Stretched to the north and south, to the northwest 

and northeast and southeast, 
Roadways half a score, in the grasp of the fate- 
shadowed sleeper, — 
Reins of power indeed, should a strong hand sud- 
denly seize them ! 

What strong hand should seize? Swift-reaching, 
and sinewed with iron, 

Masterful hand of Lee, great Captain, intrepid in- 
vader? 

Far-away cities feared. Or, haply, hand new to the 
wielding 

8 



One huge host as a sword, untried in its strength 
or its weakness, 

Unknown hand of Meade, at the southward uncer- 
tainly groping? 

Stirred with a dream of dread was the little town 
as it slumbered; 

Sudden it started and woke. 

— Through the hush of the young, hot 
morning 

One sharp shot, and another — and born was the 
Battle of Battles! 

Long had the good land lain in the sun and the 
rain, with its ridges, 

Rich broad fields for the farmer, and hills dark- 
fledged with the forests; 

Yet was the end ordained of the old earth's writh- 
ing and travail 

Neither the breathing beauty of grainfields, nor 
wealth of the harvest, 

Neither the brooding charm of the wood, nor the 
trees for the builder; 

Not for these was the earth-pang; for Pain, for 
Pain sacrificial 

Offered to God ; for the altar whereon Man 
blirdly or wisely 

Laid, for the Faith that was in him, his body born 
of a woman, 

Laid, in his passion of service, the life of his own 
blood-brother, — 

Even for that Altar august had the ridges and hills 
from aforetime 

Waited, elect. (So of old, under Syrian azure, and 
burning 

Stars of that ancient land, grew a great Tree, 
branched like another; 
9 



Soared to its height, and waited, elect for the Cross 

of all crosses. 
Now was arrived the hour, and the stern supreme 

dedication, 
Sealing the brow of the land for the Place of the 

Battle of Battles. 



II 



Twice had the sun gone down on the conflict as yet 

undetermined. 
Two fierce days were done, and the marred earth 

cumbered with horror, 
Horror of soulless pain of the beasts that perish 

unknowing, 
Horror of human ruin, the shattered sheaths of the 

spirit, 
Horror men pray to forget, and the tongue refuses 

to tell it. 
Two proud days were done, that shall shine with 

the splendors of valor 
Out of the night of the past, and live with the life 

of the nation: 
Splendors that crowd like stars — how the names 

press faster and faster! 
Splendors that melt like stars in the milkwhite 

highway of heaven, 
Fame without name, and the deeds remembered of 

doers forgotten. 
Two strange days were done; for Fate on the 

echoing anvil, 
Clashing with blow upon blow, had fashioned a 

strength out of failure, 
Craftily forging in fire and clangor the Line of 

the Union, 

IO 



Battle-line hard to break. It was curved like the 
hook of the fisher, 

Rough Culp's Hill the barb, and the Hill of the 
Graves was the curving; 

Straight as a shaft it stretched to the tawny stream 
at the southward, — 

Running then red, — and the rocks of the rude- 
piled Den of the Devil, 

Round-Top the Less, and the flank of the Greater, 
fledged with the forest, 

Fortresses fit for the Left. So the Line had been 
forged out of failure, 

Battle-line hard to break. 

Yet sick were the souls of the leaders, 

Burdened with pity and loss; the field with un- 
speakable anguish 

Groaned to the large clear moon ; might the army 
abide such a morrow? 

Cautious courageous Meade, not playing with lives 
as with counters, 

Held his commanders in council, retracing, un- 
weaving the war-web, 

Shifting the fiery threads. At the last, it was 
brought to the question. 

Was it retreat that slept in the brazen throats of 
the bugles? 

Each after each answered No; Newton and Gib- 
bon and Birney, 

Williams and Sedgwick and Sykes, Slocum and 
Howard and Hancock, 

Soul-sick with pity and loss, yet steadily acting the 
soldier, 

Man after man answered No. They were all one 
will; and their Captain 



II 



Gripped the huge host as a sword, that was utterly 

his for the wielding. 
— So the warm bright night drew on to the Day 

of decision. 



Ill 



Day crept wan on the world. 'Twas the hour when 

the birds in the branches 
One after one awake, in the dewy cool and the dim- 
ness, 
Small sweet voices of joy, praising the sunlight that 

shall be. 
Silvery the hour, and a semblance of death in the 

birth of the morning; 
Sacred the sunless hour ; now rent, as the veil of the 

temple, 
All that silver spell. In the dewy cool of the cov- 
erts 
Sounded no voices of birds; but the whistling hiss 

of the bullet, 
Ruffling volley on volley, and yell of the South, 

and the angry 
Roar of the strong hurrah from the throats of the 

soldiers of Slocum, 
There on the rough sheer steep, in the thick of the 

Culp's Hill woodlands, 
There on the rock-strewn plain, till the sun stared 

hot on the struggle, 
Jealously battling to wrest, from the grasp of a 

blindfold victor, 
Vantage but half discerned, and a foothold found 

in the darkness: 
Brave was the blindfold victor, and fiercely he 

clung to his foothold; 

12 



Almost he groped to the prize, to the gleam of the 

hard white highway 
On to Baltimore sweeping, the one sure outlet of 

safety ; 
Almost he chanced with his hand on the close- 
hoarded power of the powder: 
Brave and blind, or beholding too late, on the plain 

and the hillside, 
Seven vain hours he fought; then reeling let go 

the advantage, 
Fell back panting and foiled. Once again in its 

rugged intrenchments 
Rested the Corps of the Star; on the field rested 

many forever. 
So sped the morn on the Right. 

IV 

But the Left lay still, as enchanted : 
Two huge armies outstretched, and between them 

the undulant valley 
Basking broad, as asleep; only now and again 

through the quiet 
Ripped the skirmishers' rifles, a crackle increasing, 

then ceasing; 
Now and again from the Right came the rolling 

rumors of battle 
Echoing far, but disturbed not the dream of the 

armies enchanted: 
Ceased at the last all sound, and the magical slum- 
ber was deepened. 
So the bright hot day drew on to the noontide, and 

passed it. 

Scarce had the old-fashioned clocks, in the farm- 
houses hushed, apprehensive, — 
13 



Equably telling the tale of the fire-winged minutes 
that fleeted 

Bearing the death of men, as in days of peace, when 
the minutes 

Bore but the blessing of toil, and a sleep with its 
face to the morrow, 

— Scarce had the clocks struck One, when the deep- 
toned boom of the cannon, — 

Hark, it was twice! — on the ridge that was held 
by the Southron, gave signal: 

Boom, boom, boom after boom to the right, to the 
left, in the centre; 

Cloud, cloud, cloud after cloud, white smoke-clouds 
that sprang out and hung there, 

Massing, concealing, yet severed again and again 
by the flame-gush. 

Now from the heights of the Union the batteries 
thundered their answer, 

Boom, boom, boom after boom, from the right and 
the left and the centre, 

Surf on a winter-bound coast, a tempestuous roar- 
ing incessant. 

Piercingly rose as a cry, on that ground of vast 
sound elemental, 

Scream of the travailing shells as they burst o'er the 
cloud-covered valley. 

Trembled the solid earth, as she thrills in the throes 
of the earthquake; 

Prickled the sulphurous air with the demon-breath 
of the powder; 

Fainted the hearts of men at the endless unbearable 
clamor ; 

Filled were the heaven and the earth with the 
clang of that duel of iron: 

Such they beheld not before, and heard not, — a com- 
bat of giants! 



What did it mean on the earth? Stark terror and 
blood and confusion; 

Shriek of the battery-horses, and hell-blaze of cais- 
sons exploding; 

Reel of the torn cannoneer as he suddenly drops 
by his cannon, 

Spring of the quick volunteer to snatch from his 
dead hand the rammer; 

Orderlies galloping past, and a rumor of some- 
what a-brewing: 

Crouching of soldiers in gray, at the rear, in the 
underwoods' flicker, — 

Charge? we shall charge by and by? then a pipe 
of Virginia tobacco! 

Over their heads as they lie, by the trunks of the 
fallen trees pillowed, 

Jesting and resting an hour, come showering the 
boughs of the saplings. 

Crouching of soldiers in blue, at the front, by the 
walls and the fences, 

Waiting a charge — will they charge? and the 
brown fingers lock on the musket; 

Sharply a rifle-gun bolt rips up the ground under- 
neath him. 

There in the field on the slope is a bellow of suf- 
fering cattle, 

Out by the farmgate yonder, a tangle and mangle 
of horses; 

Shells through the farmhouse roof, where the green 
moss grew on the shingles; 

Shattered the apple-tree now, where the robin would 
sing at the sunset; 

Shall there be song again, in a world given over to 
devils? 

Shattered the stones of the dead, and about them 
the shapes of the dying; 
15 



Boom, boom, boom after boom to the right, to the 

left, in the centre, 
Endless — will it be endless? and how shall the spirit 

endure it? 

What did it mean in the heaven? Ah surely, black 
lips of the cannon, 

Surely you spake in your wrath, and the soul of the 
world understood you! 

Else it were horror indeed, and the blind brute 
rage of the jungle, 

Earth returning to slime, and the hissing and tear- 
ing of dragons! 

Guns of the Gettysburg heights, ye spake, in your 
awful contending, 

Words ye spake through the cloud, with august ora- 
cular voices, 

Mighty reverberant watchwords of Titan-forces in 
conflict : 

Crying, "The feuds of States!" and replying, "The 
peace of a Nation!" 

Crying, "The sundered stars!" and replying, "The 
heavens in their clusters 

Led in the lines of law, and linked in their dif- 
fering glory 

Star unto star to the end, until God folds them up 
as a vesture!" 

Crying, "The old-time pride, and the chivalrous 
grace and the splendor, 

Feudal rule of the Few, and a serfdom meet for the 
Many!" 

Thundering out of the cloud, as the Voice on the 
summit of Sinai, 

"Nay! But the larger Hope, and the limitless 
future of Manhood!" 

16 



These were the words that ye uttered, O hot black 
lips of the cannon, 

Catching them up from the lips of the orators fallen 
on silence, 

Voices of lion-like men, in senates no longer re- 
sounding; 

Now the debate was yours: and above it, the Ar- 
biter waited! 

V 

Slowly the men of the South, outstretched in the 
underwoods' flicker, 

Jesting and resting an hour, — the close-coupled, 
war-welded comrades, 

Hollow-cheeked veteran boys, unsubduable gaunt 
gray elders, 

Garbed in gray or in butternut-brown, the old rus- 
tical earth-hue, — 

Slowly, half-stunned, they arose, made aware of a 
lull in the tumult. 

Then through the ranks as they closed, like a thrill 
through a tense-drawn bowstring, 

Passed a wild whisper of joy. Is it true? are the 
batteries crippled 

There on the Hill of the Graves, and the long ridge 
held by the Union? 

Silenced at last and spent? and the Gray Chief 
raises his field-glass, 

He of the ardent eyes and the beard with its gra- 
cious silver, 

Leader beloved, Lee, in designing and daring a mas- 
ter. 

Gone from the Hill of the Graves are the guns with 
their merciless menace : 



17 



Now from the smoke-reeking ridge the voices 
gigantic respond not : 

This is the moment indeed ; it is big with the fate 
of the battle! 

Well are they skilled what to do, his war-seasoned 
faithful commanders, 

Longstreet, and Ambrose Hill, and Pickett the sol- 
dier intrepid 

Leading invincible veterans, chosen, the flower of 
the army. 

(Yet, O that Jackson were here, with his blue eyes 
wild and exalted, 

Soldier-saint of the South, to be sharer of all that 
is coming, 

As in the past he shared triumph and council and 
crisis. 

Bivouac-fire in the pines, and the sleep on the brown 
pine-needles — 

O that he too were here, who has crossed the River, 
and sweetly 

Rests in no earthly shade, and returns not to con- 
flict or council!) 

This is the moment indeed: it is big with the fate 
of the battle 

That is big with the fate of the world ! 

Drawing rein at the station of Longstreet, 
Eagerly springs from the saddle George Pickett the 

soldier intrepid, 
Face fire-red with his hope and his haste, and the 

lion-shaggy 
Mane of his cavalier locks tossed with the rush of 

his riding. 
"Charge? do we charge?" So he stands. 

— As over the slope of a mountain 
18 



Glooms a shadow broad, and the birds in the forest 
stop singing, 

Darkens with secret foreboding the visage of Long- 
street the leader; 

Shadow hangs on his soul, and his lips are locked; 
yet reluctant 

Bows he his beard on his breast. 

It is done ; and the moment returns not. 

VI 

Crouching meanwhile at the front, by the low stone 
walls and the fences 

There on the opposite ridge, the soldiers of Hays 
and of Gibbon, — 

Every man soldierly-proud of the Trefoil he wore 
on his cap-crown, 

Were it of white or of blue, the Trefoil that told 
he was Hancock's, — 

Crouching expectant and grim, in the roar of that 
great cannonading, 

Broke into cheer after cheer: with the flag of the 
Trefoil behind him, 

Rode the corps-commander, reviewing the line of 
his legions, 

Knowing men's need of a man. In the fury of 
sound, and the frantic 

Shriek of the battery horses, and hell-blaze of cais- 
sons exploding, 

Reared the black charger he rode; yet persisted 
the resolute rider, 

Masterful, mounted afresh ; and along the line ran 
the murmur, 

Flame on a dry field's edge, "Hancock, it's Han- 
cock!" and freshly 

Kindled the cheer as he passed. 
19 



So they lay in the line, with the muskets 

Clutched in the hard hands, ready; the men of 
New York and New Jersey, 

Delaware's sons, and Maine's, and the close-coupled, 
war-welded comrades, 

Stalwart Michigan men and the soldiers of old Mas- 
sachusetts. 

There were the very sons of the well-loved soil they 
defended, 

Stretched by the low stone wall and the dark little 
cluster of oak-trees. 

There were the lads of Vermont, fresh to the field, 
with equipments 

Glittering, — gallant to see as the folds of a clear- 
colored ensign 

Newly upreared on the staff, floating out stainless 
and splendid; 

There too, knit in its place, was the shred of the 
First Minnesota, 

Left from the Second Day's charge when it flung 
itself in as a stop-gap, 

Stirring to see as the shred of the battle-burnt col- 
ors left clinging 

Blackened and rent, to the staff, and advanced in 
the forefront of danger. 

Nay, nor alone the shoots of the rooted stock of the 
fathers 

Stood in that hedge of war; but the aliens, the sons 
of adoption, 

Loyal to death to the land of their love, as a mys- 
tical Mother, 

Virgin, glorious, mild, immortal, a presence to die 
for! 

There in the line of defence was the flag Garibaldi 
once planted 



ao 



Proud on the ramparts of Rome; and the bright- 
green beautiful banner, 

Banner of glory and grief, that has blown in the 
breezes of battle 

Over all fields of the world, to beckon high hearts 
to the onset; 

Yet was uplifted supreme the Flag of the hope of the 
future, 

Set with the splendors of stars, and striped with the 
heart's-blood of heroes. 

So they lay in the line, with the hard hands clutch- 
ing the muskets : 

Men of the farm and the forge and the carpenter's 
bench and the engine; 

Men from the counter and desk; and the teacher 
was there with his pupils; 

There the bold-eyed firemen, the turbulent lads of 
the cities ; 

There the men of the shore, — they had left the 
broad nets and the fishing; 

There the men of the axe, — they had left the tall 
trees in the forest. 

What was it drew them away from their labor and 
love and contentment, 

Buying and selling and scheming, and building, and 
yoking the oxen? 

Made them willing to fling down Life, the myste- 
rious jewel, 

All the lovely and strange thing that it is, with the 
pleasant 

Light of the kindly sun, and the sweet of the grass 
in the summer, 

Salt of the large sea-breeze, and the mild stars 
shining in heaven, 

21 



Joy of the free whole body, and wonderful wafts of 
the spirit? 

All a man hath will he give for his life, — but his 
life for his duty! 

This is the touchstone of manhood, the swift and 
the final election, 

Test of the heart that is true to some lofty and ulti- 
mate brightness 

Secretly set above self; at its blindest, shall God 
not accept it? 

Ah, but how blessed are they, — not summoned by 
voices misleading, 

Lured of the marsh-light, and tricked to the true 
defence of a falsehood, — 

Who with their measure of power, conscious, half- 
conscious, unconscious, 

Work the Eternal Will, in the chaos a force of 
salvation, 

Motes of the dust as it streams, yet touched with 
the light of God's purpose! 



VII 



So they lay in the line, as the discord diminished, 
and almost 

Seemed as a silence, to sense that was drowned with 
the sound of the cannon. 

Hung on the spirits of all men a prescience of some- 
thing impending 

Great and strange, as at times when thick darkness 
possesses the noonday; 

Yet was the sky most bright with its burning azure ; 
and strangely 

Shifted the wind, and lifted the lingering smoke as 
a curtain; 

22 



Reek ot the powder drew off, and the valley was 

bare and apparent, 
Dip of the hollowing plain, and the trampled green 

of the cornfields. 

Suddenly out of the wood, with a swift and reso- 
lute movement, 

Over the long slow slope of the hollowing plain to 
the eastward, 

Swept the tried Virginians, the war-seasoned soldiers 
of Pickett. 

Swinging with springing step, in the distance a 
rhythmic pulsation, 

Blithely they marched as those who march in a 
holiday pageant; 

Lightly they marched, and afar the foemen that 
looked on them loved them. 

Rode at the head of the column Pickett the soldier 
intrepid, 

Proudly, with cap a-slant, and cavalier locks free- 
floating; 

Rode with their brave brigades Armistead, Kem- 
per, and Garnett. 

Joined the advance on the left, Pettigrew leading 
and Trimble, 

Regiments grim and seared with the scorch of the 
two days' battle, 

Bleeding and torn with loss, but prompt to the 
fiery renewal: 

Mississippians fierce, and the undismayed Tennes- 
seans, 

Valorous Alabamans, and soldiers of North Caro- 
lina. 

Onward the long wave rolled, steadily, steadily 
onward, 



23 



Gray wave glinting with steel, and the battle-flags 
floating above it. 

So have you seen on the shore the line of the bil- 
low advancing, 

Fateful, unhasting, sure, to the charge uprearing 
exultant 

Threaten the land with its strength; from its crest, 
for an exquisite instant, 

Foam-bows backward stream, — in the next, it has 
vanished forever! % 

Onward the long wave rolled, steadily, steadily on- 
ward, 
Over the hollowing plain, and the trampled green 

of the cornfields. 
Stood the two armies at gaze; until, from the 

stronghold of Howard, 
Hill of the Graves, and the ridge, and the shoulder 

of Round-Top the Lesser, 
Burst the leashed lightnings anew, and the roars 

of the thunder ironic! 
Forth from their hot black dens in the gorge of the 

cavernous cannon, — 
Guns new-thrust into place, — freed for the service 

appointed, 
Tigerish, Death and Fire leaped on the open arena. 
One low sound was heard through the tumult, and 

deeply remembered, 
Human, the moan of life mowed as the grass of the 

meadow. 
One sharp shudder ran through the host of the 

South, the beholders. 
(Over the mind of the Chief a memory, thrilling 

electric, 



24 



Flashed, the revenge of Time: and he saw the blue- 
coated battalions 

Move through the winterly light of the cruel Thir- 
teenth of December 

Up to the sunken wall that was topped with the 
rifles of Georgia: 

Stubborn and stern they came, to pile the bleak field 
with their bodies. 

He, who had looked on that day, looked now on his 
own, his Virginians, 

Drinking the cup of fire, like their brothers, their 
foemen, before them. 

Sorrow and pride in his soul struggled ; he suffered, 
and spoke not.) 

Pain possessed the field, and the smoke-veil settled 
upon it; 

Yet underneath the cloud, as a strong wave under 
the sea-mist, 

Rolled the lessening line, steadily, steadily onward. 

Rifle-bolt, round-shot, and shell, from the right, 

from the left of them raking, 
Buzzing and screaming and bursting, harrowed the 

ranks of them redly; 
Strangely the Centre was silent, — the Centre, and 

eyes of the captains 
Fixed, in the storm, on the landmark, the dark little 

cluster of oak-trees 
Faintly and fitfully seen, and the low stone wall 

through the smoke-veil. 
Mingled anon in the whirl the whistle and whip of 

the bullets 
Sped from the sharpshooters' rifles; anon in the 

iron confusion, 
Musketry crashed on the flank; and now on the 

breast of the column 
25 



Flamed the canister-fire from the gunners of Hays 

and of Gibbon. 
Blending, the sheeted blaze of the heavily-volleying 

muskets 
Suddenly fringed the front, from the regiments 

crouching expectant: 
Almost with awe they awaited the furious onset 

of foemen 
Tried in the five-fold fire, and from hell undaunted 

emerging. 

Waited not long: with the crash of answering vol- 
ley for volley, 

Raising the yell of the charge, wild as the howl 
of the wolf-pack, 

Surged up out of the smoke the first of the lean 
tanned faces, 

Teeth half -bared as in joy, and the sunken eyes 
savagely gleaming 

Under the old gray brims and the slant of the 
battered visors. 

Man to man at last! 

In the grip and the sway of the wrestle 
Springing the regiments clinched, flinging away 

their formation, 
Red-blind, sobbing for breath, mad in the terrible 

mellay, 
Mad for the blood-bright flags, for the star-crossed 

flags of the Southland, 
Borne on the crest of the wave through the broken 

lines of the Union — 
Broken 

Again to close; brief was the desperate 
triumph ! 

26 



Happy the Southron who died as cheering he planted 
his colors, 

Passed on the crest of the wave as it curved to the 
crash of its falling! 

Happy, not knowing defeat, Garnett, the gallant, 
and happy 

Armistead leaping the wall, lifting his cap on his 
sword-point, 

Smiting his hand on the cannon, and suddenly sink- 
ing across it! 

Not for them the crawl of the sick slow days of the 
captive, 

Torture of wounds, nor bruit of the perishing cause 
that they fought for — 

Rather swift conquest of Peace, and to enter the 
City of Silence! 

Not for them be sorrow; but sorrow for such men 
as haply, 

Flung on the flag of the South as it burst through 
the line of the Union, 

Fell, and died in their doubt, and knew not the 
sweep of the darkness 

Over their faces upturned was the passing of Vic- 
tory's garment! 

Victory! Shattered supports reeled on the right, 
and rolled backward. 

Islanded, closed in the copse, lost, without hope, the 
Virginian 

Doggedly loaded once more, and the Tennessean be- 
side him ; 

Thus had they chosen to die, each dealing death in 
his dying. 

Sullen, some bowed them to fate, waved the white 
sign of surrender, 

27 



Droopingly trailed to the rear with the bayonet- 
glitter to guard them; 

Brokenly over the plain receded the sorrowful rem- 
nant, 

Choosing retreat through fire. 

Even so, dragged back to the ocean, 

So have you seen on the shore, reluctant, and leav- 
ing behind it 

Swathes of the dark-red weed, and the beaten foam, 
and the leaping 

Gasping silver life of the deep, and the tragical 
driftwood, 

Some great wave withdrawn, at the turn of the 
tide, from the floodmark. 

Sad it seethes back to the sea. 

That was the turn of the war-tide, 
Ebb of the hope of the South, end of the Battle of 
Battles ! 

VIII 

Noon of the night was come; and over the field 

sacrificial, 
Over the trampled corn, and the broken trees, and 

the horror, — 
Horror of soulless pain of the beasts that perish 

unknowing, 
Horror of human ruin, the shattered sheaths of the 

spirit, 
Horror men pray to forget, and the tongue refuses 

to tell it, — 
Now was the taintless light of the large moon shed 

out of heaven, 



Glory unchanged as the Face of the Father of 

Lights, to whom upward 
Gropes the groaning world. 

On the sweet summer grass in the moonlight, 

Long, by the tent of his leader, a watcher lay pa- 
tiently waiting, 

Waiting the great Gray Captain, so many times 
hailed as the victor 

On those fields foregone; and the far-away cities 
had feared him. 

Ever with wild lost cry the whippoorwill cried 
in the woodland. 

Late, through the light of the moon, and the flick- 
ering shadow of branches, 

Lee came riding alone, the beloved magnanimous 
chieftain, 

All alone with defeat in the lucent night and the 
silence. 

Slowly he rode, as one who rides by the bier of a 
soldier, 

Hearing the muffled drums and the sob of a martial 
sorrow ; 

Slowly he rode, with downcast head, and the deep 
moon-shadow 

Lay underneath his brow T s. At the last, from his 
horse, overwearied, 

Hardly he might dismount; on the saddle heavily 
flinging 

One lax arm, he stood awhile without word to the 
other ; 

Moveless, horse and man, as if by the art of the 
sculptor 

Wrought in enduring bronze for an everlasting re- 
membrance. 



29 



Still in his brain, unbidden, labored the pitiless 

hammers 
Forging the things to be; and he saw the train of 

the wounded, 
Mile upon mile of moan, waggon to waggon suc- 
ceeding, 
Crawl like a crippled snake painfully toward the 

Potomac ; 
Saw his crippled Cause, as she dragged her way in 

the distance 
Dim, through fields of fire to a last sad field of 

surrender. 
— Memory, passionate, proud, sprang of a sudden 

resurgent ; 
Swiftly he lived again the day, and beheld his Vir- 
ginians 
Splendidly sweep to the shock that the land shall 

remember forever ; 
Flashed the ardent eyes, and the spell of his silence 

was broken. 
Proudly he spoke of the charge, in a voice that 

deepened and trembled 
Naming dear names of the dead ; then turned to the 

task of the living, 
Motioned to enter the tent, and delivered the trust 

of the morrow. 

So the spark of pride, in the heart of the leader be- 
loved, 

Kindled a fresh, false hope; and he sat by the flare 
of the candle 

Planning the morrow's course, and retrieval, if 
haply it might be. 

(Under the same clear moon, by the flow of the 
far Mississippi, 



30 



Grant was waking too, the invincible taciturn sol- 
dier 

Chosen of fate; in his tent, by the candle-light 
feeble and fitful, 

Writing the final terms of the longed-for surrender 
of Vicksburg.) 

Stars swept on, meanwhile, in their still, predes- 
tinate pathways; 

Mornward wheeled the world; and Time, inex- 
haustible Mother, 

Bore to us once again the Day of the birth of a 
Nation 

Sprung from the life-blood of heroes, and conse- 
crated to Freedom. 

Guns of the Gettysburg heights, we hear you as out 

of the distance: 
Shall we not understand? Ye spake, in your awful 

contending, 
Words ye spake through the cloud, with austere 

oracular voices, 
Mighty reverberant watchwords of Titan-forces in 

conflict: 
Crying, "The sundered stars!" and replying "The 

heavens in their clusters, 
Led in the lines of law, and linked in their differ- 
ing glory 
Star unto star to the end, until God folds them 

up as a vesture!" 
Crying, "Fit rule of the Few, and a serfdom meet 

for the Many!" 
Thundering out of the smoke, as the Voice on the 

summit of Sinai, — 
Then on the great Third Day, when the trumpet 

was loud, and the lightnings 



31 



Leaped in the mount, and the people fell down at 
the Voice of Jehovah, — 

Thundering out of the smoke with the final august 
proclamation : 

"Nay! but the larger Hope, and the limitless fu- 
ture of Manhood!" 

(Nathless a nation elect, a people led forth out of 

bondage, 
Led of the cloud and led of the fire, and upheld in 

the battle, 
Borne upon wings of eagles, and saved in the midst 

of the waters, 
Made to them gods of gold, even there, in the 

desert of Sinai.) 

Guns of the Gettysburg heights, we hear you as 
out of the distance: 

Cease not to roll, vast Echoes! Reverberate solemn, 
immortal ! 

Speak to us out of the past of the splendor of 
valor triumphant, 

Speak of the splendor of valor transcending defeat, 
of the manhood 

Tried to the utmost, and true to some lofty and ul- 
timate brightness 

Secretly set above self: O speak, that we too in 
our measure, — 

Fallen on diverse days, far otherwise tempted and 
tested, — 

Work the Eternal Will, in the chaos a force of sal- 
vation, 

Motes of the dust as it streams, yet touched with 
the light of God's purpose! 



32 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
February 12, 1909 



The centuries pass, yea as a dream they pass. 

Nations and races, with all that they have sown, 

Sink as the prairie-grass, 

By the invisible scythe silently mown. 

The wind breathes over them, and the place thereof 

Knows them no more. 

But the unsounded sky still broods above, 

Blue ocean without shore, 

Eternal in its breadth and depth and fire of love. 

So the o'erbrooding Soul, purely ablaze, 

Full-flooded with the light of God, 

Outlasts Man's body and all his works and ways, 

Outlasts this little earth whereon he trod. 



II 



We come not, then, to praise 

That which transcends our praises, but to crave 

The light of one great soul, kind as the sky, 

Upon these later days, — 

Not like the simpler time gone by, 

But set with snares of sense and ease, 

And crowded with poor phantom flatteries 

That serve us, and enslave. 

We come, forgetting for a while 

Our million-peopled cities, pile on pile 

Upsoaring starry-windowed in the night 

To perilous Babel-height; 

We come, forgetting all our new-found powers, 

33 



The magic of the mastery that is ours, 

The shoes of swiftness we may lightly wear, 

And that fresh-captived Ariel of the air, 

All, all that makes Man's face to shine 

With pride of conquest, flushing him as wine, — 

We come, forgetting all, a little while 

To look in Lincoln's eyes, 

So loving-sad, so kindly-wise; 

To stand, as judged, before his patient smile; 

Until his large mould shames us, and we know 

We are as children, yet have hope to grow, 

Since this may be the stature of a man. 

Ill 

Strangely his life began, 

Rough-cradled in the savage wood. 

Haply our foolish softness grieves 

O'er much that he found good, 

The hut of logs, the bed of leaves. 

By the faint candle, or the winter's fire, 

He groped to his desire, 

The long, lean, sallow, knowledge-hungry lad, 

Deerskin or homespun clad. 

Slow-stumbling upward, in good time he grew 

To that just man his little city knew, 

His plain, persuasive speech 

Shaped by an instinct none could ever teach, 

Savoring of honest earth, and sharp with wilding 

jest. 
Then came his country's call. 
Humble and hesitant, in doubt and dread, 
And stooping that tall head 
Black-ruffled like the eagle's crest, 
He passed up to the highest place of all. 

34 



IV 

Ah, who shall tell the tale of those wild years, 

Of pride and grief, of blood and tears? 

The horror and the splendor and the sorrow, 

The marching-songs of midnight, the sick fears 

Of every fateful morrow? 

Sometimes a waft of song, a random strain, 

Suddenly lifts a curtain in the brain: 

Some sweet old homesick soldier-ballad, one 

Beloved of many a sunburnt longing son 

Of Michigan or Maine, 

Or that light laughing tune wherewith the South 

Fifed her boy-soldiers blithe to the cannon's 

mouth, — 
Suddenly all is real once more, 
The hoping, the despairing, 
The pity and the passion and the daring, 
And all the agony of the Brother- War! 



Each bore his burden: but he all burdens bore, 

Whose sad heart folded all the sufferers in; 

While with a master's steady hand he played, 

Mournful but undismayed, 

That giant game where it was pain to win. 

Ah, pain to win, but double death to lose! 

He saw the end, he knew the thing at stake 

Was Manhood's captain-jewel: he could not choose 

But play the grim game out, though that great 

heart should break. 
He smiled, as he had need 
To keep him sane: 

Sad Lincoln laughed! on mountain-side or plain 
Not any soldier did a braver deed. 
35 



VI 

Last, all his duty done, — 

All the dark bondmen freed, 

The long-sought leader found, the piteous victory 

won, — 
Arrived for him one hour of April sun 
Wherein he breathed free as the forest again, 
In glad goodwill to men 
Nursing some vast forgiveness in his mind. 
Then — all turned blank and blind. 
Dare we remember the tragic lilac-time 
Crimsoned with that mad crime? 
Nay, hush ! Ye have heard how sacrifice must close 
The supreme service; 'tis the way God chose. 

VII 

Ah, haply we, the native-born, 

And sprung of grandsires native too, 

Proud of soul this stately morn 

Would with his fame one race, one land indue; 

Would claim him ours, and ours alone, 

Flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone, 

Inseparably our own! 

Ours by the English name, 

And that old England whence his forebears came, 

And that dear English of his tongue and pen; 

Mightier successor of our most mighty men; 

Ours, by his birth beneath our western sky, 

Ours, by the flag he died to save, 

Ours, by the home-fields of his labor, and by 

The home-earth of his grave! 

VIII 

But hark! as if some league-long barrier broke 
To let wide waters in tumultuouslv. 

36 



I hear the voices of the outland folk 

From sea to sea — yea, rolling over-sea: 

"You shall not limit his large glory thus, 

You shall not mete his greatness with a span! 

This man belongs to us, 

Gentile and Jew, Teuton and Celt and Russ 

And whatso else we be ! 

This man belongs to Man! 

And never, till a flood of love efface 

The hard distrusts that sever race from race, 

Comes his true jubilee! 

Never, till all the wars, 

Yea, even the noble wars that strive to peace, 

With all the thunder of all the drums shall cease, 

And all the booming guns on all the brother-shores; 

Never, till that worst strife of every day, 

More bitter-sordid than the clash of steel, 

By some new solving word our lips may learn to 

say, 
Be wholly done away, 

Deep-drowned in brotherhood, quenched in the com- 
mon weal, 
Ah, never, till every spirit shall stand up free, 
Comes the great Liberator's jubilee!" 



37 



GREENCASTLE JENNY 

A BALLAD OF 'SIXTY-THREE 

Oh, Greencastle streets were a stream of steel 

With the slanted muskets the soldiers bore, 
And the scared earth muttered and shook to feel 

The tramp and the rumble of Longstreet's Corps ; 
The bands were blaring "The Bonny Blue Flag," 

And the banners borne were a motley many; 
And watching the gray column wind and drag 

Was a slip of a girl — we'll call her Jenny. 

A slip of a girl — what needs her name? — 

With her cheeks aflame and her lips aquiver, 
As she leaned and looked with a loyal shame 

At the steady flow of the steely river: 
Till a storm grew black in the hazel eyes 

Time had not tamed, nor a lover sighed for; 
And she ran and she girded her, apron-wise, 

With the flag she loved and her brothers died for. 

Out of the doorway they saw her start 

(Pickett's Virginians were marching through), 
The hot little foolish hero-heart 

Armored with stars and the sacred blue. 
Clutching the folds of red and white 

Stood she and bearded those ranks of theirs, 
Shouting shrilly with all her might, 

"Come and take it, the man that dares!" 

Pickett's Virginians were passing through; 

Supple as steel and brown as leather, 
Rusty and dusty of hat and shoe, 

Wonted to hunger and war and weather; 

38 



Peerless, fearless, an army's flower! 

Sterner soldiers the world saw never, 
Marching lightly, that summer hour, 

To death and failure and fame forever. 

Rose from the rippling ranks a cheer; 

Pickett saluted, with bold eyes beaming, 
Sweeping his hat like a cavalier, 

With his lion locks in the warm wind streaming. 
Fierce little Jenny! her courage fell, 

As the firm lines flickered with friendly laughter, 
And Greencastle streets gave back the yell 

That Gettysburg slopes gave back soon after. 

So they cheered for the flag they fought 

With the generous glow of the stubborn fighter, 
Loving the brave as the brave man ought, 

And never a finger was raised to fright her: 
So they marched, though they knew it not, 

Through the fresh green June to the shock in- 
fernal, 
To the hell of the shell and the plunging shot, 

And the charge that has won them a name 
eternal. 

And she felt at last, as she hid her face, 

There had lain at the root of her childish daring 
A trust in the men of her own brave race, 

And a secret faith in the foe's forbearing. 
And she sobbed, till the roll of the rumbling gun 

And the swinging tramp of the marching men 
Were a memory only, and day was done, 

And the stars in the fold of the blue again. 

{Thank God that the day of the sword is done, 
And the stars in the fold of the blue again!) 
39 



BY THE BLOCKHOUSE ON THE HILL 

A Ballad of 'Ninety-Eight 

The soul of the fair young man sprang up 
From the earth where his body lay, 

And he was aware of a grim dark soul 
Companioning his way. 

"Who are you, brother?" the fair soul said; 

"We wing together still!" 
And the soul replied, that was swart and red, 
"The spirit of him who shot you dead 

By the blockhouse on the hill. 

"Your men and you on the crest were first, 

And the last foe left was I ; 
In the crackle of rifles I dropped and cursed, 
Lightning-struck as the cheer outburst 

And the hot charge panted nigh. 

"You saw me writhe at the side of the trench: 

You bade — I know not what: 
With one last gnash, with one last wrench, 

I sped my last, sure shot. 

"The thing that lies on the sodden ground 
Like a wrack of the whirlwind's track, 

Your men have made of the body of me, — 
But they could not call you back! 

"In that black game I won, I won! 

But had you worked your will, 
Speak now the shame that you would have done 

By the blockhouse on the hill!" 



40 



"God judge my men!" said the fair young soul 

"He knows you tried them sore. 
Had He given me power to bide an hour 

I had wrought that they forbore. 

"I bade them, ere your bullet brought 

This swift, this sweet release, 
To bear your body out of the fire 

That you might pass in peace." 

Said the grim dark soul, "Farewell, farewell, 

Farewell 'twixt you and me, 
Till they set red Judas loose from hell 

To kneel at the Lord Christ's knee!" 

"Not so, not so," said the fair young soul, 

"But reach me out your hand: 
We two will kneel at the Lord Christ's knee, 
And He that was hanged on the cruel tree 

Will remember and understand. 

"We two will pray at the Lord Christ's knee 

That never on earth again 
The breath of the hot brute guns shall cloud 

The sight in the eyes of men!" 

The clean stars came into the sky; 

The perfect night was still; 
Yet rose to heaven the old blood-cry, 

By the blockhouse on the hill. 



41 



THE ADMIRAL'S STORY 

This the Admiral told, 

The Admiral early-old, 

Gentle, and tragic-eyed, 

The year before he died; 

Told to the lads of the street, 

At the Settlement where they meet, 

Jake and Patsy and Pete, 

Sons of the lean East Side. 

Eyes of the Irish blue, 

Jewel-bright eyes of the Jew, 

Stared at him, wonder-wide, 

As he stood there blanched and frail, 

Telling a world-known tale 

With a look that was far away. 

Some that were once as they, 

Aliens, lads of the street, 

Served with the great gray fleet 

On Santiago Day. 

They looked upon him then 

With eyes that did not swerve, 

Gravely; they too were men; 

Haply they too might serve! 

Sunday it was, he said ; 

The warm sky overhead 

Bright blue, without a fleck; 

And the flagship steaming east 

To Shafter at Siboney, 

With the Admiral on her deck. 

Westward the Morro lay, 

Seven long miles at least. 

(Each in her station right, 

The gray ships ranged in a ring; 



42 



Slender the Spaniard's chance for flight! 
So grim birds on a poising wing 
Threaten a wounded beast.) 

Suddenly burst from the Morro bluff 

One round, cloud-white puff! 

Nobody felt a doubt: 

The Spaniard was coming out, 

And the Admiral seven miles east — 

Seven long miles at least! 

(Ah, fate's master-stroke, 

Irony royal-rare! 

After the long blockade 

And the patient plans well laid, 

The search-light's sleepless glare 

And the growl of the cannonade — 

The whole fleet bid to the battle-feast, 

And the Admiral seven miles east!) 

Forth from the channel they came, — 

Adventure of despair! — 

Each stately and splendid name 

Foredoomed to thunder and flame, 

Foredoomed to ruin and fame, 

But the Admiral was not there! 

He saw from afar his ships close in, 

The smoke-veils thicken, the chase begin, 

(And O for wings! sighed the Admiral's heart, 

As the flagship followed, apart.) 

"Then it was, as we speeded west, 
Just as the flagship came abreast 
Of the poor Theresa there, on the beach, 
And the Almirante Oquendo, each 
Wrecked and ablaze," he said, 
"We saw on the seaward side, 
All alone in the waters wide, 
43 



Rising and falling, the round black head 
Of a Spanish sailor as good as dead, 
Fighting death in the sea. 

"Strange it seemed when the strife 
Shrank to a single man, 
Fighting alone for his life! 
One of the flagship's crew 
A second stood at a loss, 
Then leaped and shouted and ran 
And reached and lifted and threw 
The desk with the wooden cross 
Where the chaplain used to read. 
He hurled it over the side. 
'Dago, cling to the Cross 
And you shall be saved!' he cried. 
And the thing was so indeed. 

"Strange, how the terrible battle-strain 

Goes like wine to the brain! 

Those were the words we heard him speak, 

With a twitch of his leathern cheek. 

Did he jest? would his own soul know? 

'Dago, cling to the Cross 

And you shall be saved!* he cried; 

And indeed the thing was so." 

This the Admiral told 
To the boys of alien race, 
Each eager, sparkling face 
Insistently outthrust 
To hear and to behold ; 
He, robbed of his desire, 
Gentle and blanched and frail, 
War's martyr, ashen-pale, 
Burnt brittle in that fire, — 
And now a long time dust. 



DEATH AFTER WAR 

Gone the Red Harvester, with heaped-up wain 
Darkening against the blood-bright sky; yet 
lingers 

The lone, gaunt Gleaner on the twilight plain, 
Blind-gathering with the clutch of hungry fingers. 



45 



THE RIDDLE OF WRECK 

Dark hemlocks, seventy and seven, 
High on the hill-slope sigh in dream, 

With plumy heads in heaven; 

They silver the sunbeam. 

One broken body of a tree, 

Stabbed through and slashed by lightning keen, 

Unsouled, and grim to see, 

Hangs o'er the hushed ravine. 

A hundred masts, a hundred more, 
Crowd close against the sunset-fires. 

Their late adventure o'er, 

They mingle with the spires. 

But one is lying prone, alone, 

Where gleaming gulls to seaward sweep, 

White sand of burial blown 

In sheets about its sleep. 

When lightning 's leashed, and sea is still, 
Ye sacrificial mysteries dread, 

Scapegoats of shore and hill, 

Your riddle may be read. 



4 6 



THE COMMON STREET 

The common street climbed up against the sky, 

Gray meeting gray ; and wearily to and fro 

I saw the patient, common people go, 

Each with his sordid burden trudging by. 

And the rain dropped; there was not any sigh 

Or stir of a live wind; dull, dull and slow 

All motion; as a tale told long ago 

The faded world; and creeping night drew nigh. 

Then burst the sunset, flooding far and fleet, 
Leavening the whole of life with magic leaven. 
Suddenly down the long wet glistening hill 
Pure splendor poured — and lo! the common street, 
A golden highway into golden heaven, 
With the dark shapes of men ascending still. 



47 



CALNAN'S CHRISTMAS 

When you hear the fire-gongs beat fierce along the 
startled street, 
See the great-limbed horses bound, and the gleam- 
ing engine sway, 
And the driver in his place, with his fixed, heroic 
face, 
Say a prayer for Calnan's sake — he that died on 
Christmas day! 

Cling! Cling! Each to his station! 
Clang! Clang! Quick to clear the way! 

(Christ keep the soldiers of salvation, 
Fighting nameless battles in the war of every day!) 

In the morning, blue and mild, of the Mother and 
the Child, 
While the blessed bells were calling, thrilled the 
summons through the wire; 
In the morning, blue and mild, for a woman and a 
child 
Died a man of gentle will, plunging on to fight 
the fire. 

Ring, swing, bells in the steeple! 
Ring the Child and ring the Star, as sweetly as ye 
may! 
Ring, swing, bells, to tell the people 
God's good will to earthly men, the men of every 
day! 

"Thirty-four" swung out agleam, with her mighty, 
bounding team; 
Horses' honor pricked them on, and they leaped 
as at a goad; 

48 



Jimmy Calnan in his place, with his clean-cut Irish 
face, 
Iron hands upon the reins, eyes a-strain upon the 
road. 

Clang! Clang! Quick to clear the way! 
(Sweetly rang, above the clang, the bells of Christ- 
mas day.) 

Tearing, plunging through the din, scarce a man 
can hold them in ; 
None on earth could pull them short: Mary 
Mother, guard from harm 
Yonder woman straight ahead, stony-still with sud- 
den dread, 
And the little woman-child, with her waxen child 
in arm! 

Oh, God's calls, how swift they are! Oh, the 
Cross that hides the Star! 
Oh, the fire-gong beating fierce through the bells 
of Christmas day! 
Just a second there to choose, and a life to keep or 
lose — 
To the curb he swung the horses, and he flung 
his life away! 

Ring, swing, bells in the steeple! 
Ring the Star and ring the Cross, for Star and 
Cross are one! 
Ring, swing, bells, to tell the people 
God is pleased with manly men, and deeds that they 
have done! 



49 



GUION 

Is it so hard to die in the glory and fury of fight? 
Sweet is the death for the flag — splendid the death 

when Fame 
Snatches the sinking torch, and lifts it alive, 

alight! — 
Let us remember his name who drank of a cup of 

flame 
Silently pledging Duty, and would not shirk 
Death in the plain day's work. 

Guion was running the lift 

There at the doomed hotel 

When the grim chance befell. 

Twenty years, day out, day in, 

Still the same had the day's work been: 

Up and down, steady and swift, 

At the thrill of the calling bell. 

Boy and man, and still the same; 

Then — the wild moment came. 

Fire and fear, and the rush, and the gush of the 

choking smoke; 
Cries, and the hoarse command, and the engine's 

clanging stroke; 
Still, at the well-known call, in the wonted way, 
Up and down, steady and swift, 
Guion kept running the lift; 
Many and many a life is his gift 
That had else gone out that day. 

How it billowed, the surge of black 
On the delicate springtime sky! 
The firemen knew they were come to the end of it 
all — 

50 



They were beaten, the roof must fail. 

Hands laid hold upon Guion: "You can't eo 
back!" 

But he answered, "I'll stand by!" 

And again through the tumult — hark! 

Shrill, oh pitiful-shrill, 

The throb of the bell that summoned, the agony- 
thrill, 

Calling, — it fell on his soul like the sting of a spark. 

"One more trip!" said Guion; and steady and swift 

Mounted the man and the lift. 

— Save in the dust of ruin, that baffles ken, 

None saw Guion again. 

Year after year, when the great March sunsets 

flame, 
Let us remember his name. 



51 



POVERTY ROW 

Brave old neighbors in Poverty Row, 

Why should we grudge to dwell with you? 
Pinch of poverty well ye know — 

Doubtful dinner and clouted shoe. 
Grinned the wolf at your doors, and yet 

You sang your songs and you said your say. 
Lashed to labor by devil Debt, 

All were manful, and some were gay. 

What, old Chaucer! a royal jest 
Once you made in your laughing verse : 
"No more goldfinch -song in the nest — 

Autumn nest of the empty purse!" 
Master Spenser, your looks are spare; 

Princes' favors, how fleet they be! 
Thinking that yours was the selfsame fare, 

Crust or crumb shall be sweet to me. 

Worshipful Shakespeare of Stratford town, 

Prosperous-portly in doublet red, 
What of the days when you first came down 

To London city to earn your bread? 
What of the lodging where Juliet's face 

Startled your dream with its Southern glow, 
Flooding with splendor the sordid place? 

That was a garret in Poverty Row! 

Many a worthy has here, I ween, 

Made brief sojourn or long abode: 
Johnson, dining behind the screen; 

Goldsmith, vagrant along the road; 
Keats, ah, pitiful! poor and ill, 

Harassed and hurt, in his short spring day; 

52 



Best Sir Walter, with flagging quill 
Digging the mountain of debt away. 

Needy comrade, whose evil star, 

Pallid-frowning, decrees you wrong , 
Greatly neighbored, in truth, we are; 

Hold your heart up and sing your song! 
Lift your eyes to the book-shelf where, 

Glorious-gilded, a shining show, 
Every man in his mansion fair, 

Dwell the princes of Poverty Row! 



53 



THE INN OF THE STAR 

When the Old Year plods down 
Toward the end of the hill, 

Where the white little town 
Lies asleep, wonder-still, 

Then he mends his dull pace, 
For a ray, streaming far, 

Strikes a gleam on his face 

From the Inn of the Star. 

Then the staff is set by, 

And the shoon from his feet, 
And the burden let lie, 

And he sitteth at meat; 
Old jests round the board, 

Old songs round the blaze, 
While the faint bells accord 

Like the souls of old days. 

In the sweet bed of peace 

He shall sleep for a night, 
And faith, like a fleece, 

Lap him kindly and light; 
Then the wind, crooning wild, 

Mystic music shall seem, 
And the brow of the Child 

Be a light through his dream. 

And we, too, follow down 

The long slope of the hill: 
See, the white little Town, 

Where it shines, wonder-still! 
Be our hopes quenched or bright, 

Be our griefs what they are, 
We shall sojourn a night 

At the Inn of the Star. 
54 



MARINA SINGS 
{Pericles, Act V, Sc. i.) 

This is the song Marina sang 

To forlorn Pericles: 
Silver the young voice rang. 

The gray beard blew about his knees, 
And the hair of his bowed head, like a veil, 
Fell over his cheeks and blent with it: 

He knew not anything. 

Above him the Tyrian fold 
Of the curtain billowed, fringed with gold, 

As might beseem a king. 
Sunset was rose on every sail 
That did along the far sea flit, 
And rose on the cedarn deck 
Of the ship that at anchor swayed; 
And the harbor was golden-lit. 

He lifted not his neck 
At the coming of the maid. 
She swept him with her eyes, 
As though some tender wing 
Just touched a bleaching wreck 

In sheeted sand that lies; 

Then she began to sing. 

THE SONG 

Hush, ah hush! the sea is kind! 
Lullaby is in the wind ; 
Grief the babe forgets to weep, 
Lapped and spelled and laid to sleep : 
His lip is wet with the milk of the spray ; 
He shall not wake till another day. 
Ah hush! the sea is kind! 
55 



Who can tell, ah who can tell, 
The cradling nurse's crooned spell? 
While the slumber-web she weaves 
Never nursling stirs or grieves: 
The tears that drowned his sweet eye-beams 
Are turned to mists of rainbow dreams. 
Ah hush! she charms us well! 

"All thy hurts I balm and bind; 
All thy heart's loves thou shalt find!" 
Yea, this she murmurs, best of all: 
"It was not loss that did befall! 
All thy joys are put away; 
They shall be thine another day!" 
Ah hush ! the sea is kind ! 

She sang; she trembled like a lyre; 
Her pure eyes burned with azure fire; 
About her lucent brow the hair 
Played like light flames divine ones wear: 

The maid was very fair. 
But when she saw he gave no heed, — 
Close-mantled up in ancient pain 

As in some sad -wound weed, 

Dumb as a shape of stone, 

Being years past all moan, — 

She tried no other strain, 
But softly spake: "Most royal sir!" 
He raised his head and looked at her. 
So might a castaway, half dead, 

Lift up his haggard head, 
Waked by the swirl of sudden rain, 

A cool, unhoped-for grace, 

Against his tearless face: 



56 



And see, with happy-crazed mind, 
Upon his raft a Bright One stand, — 
His love of youth, her grave long left behind 
In some sweet-watered land. 



57 



THE KING'S DIAMOND 

This diamond he greets your wife withal 
By the name of most kind hostess. 

Macbeth, Act II, sc. i. 

Duncan the King, — Heaven rest his bier! — 

Had a diamond icy-clear; 

Clear as ice and fierce as flame, — 

I wot not whence he had the same. 

Its fellow was not in the land. 

It shot keen shafts of every hue 

On the old king's trembling hand 

Where the veins were large and blue. 

A jewel of price was that indeed, 

Fit to buy a prince's life; 

A royal gift for the lady wife 

Of a kinsman bold and true 

Who had served the king at need. 

Who was he, but the Red Macbeth 

That wrought the false Macdonwald's death, 

And drave the sea-wolf in dismay, 

Sweyn the king of Norroway? 

Being guest to that great thane, 

Ere his limbs on couch had lain 

Duncan sent that frozen flame 

To Lady Gruach, the gracious dame. 

(Clear as ice was the lady's fame, 

A flawless jewel indeed!) 

Duncan the king at Colmkill sleeps, 
So sound he will not turn or moan; 
His slumber-draught was deep, I ween, 
Bitter-spiced with daggers keen. 
It is the Red Macbeth that keeps 
Stern state upon the throne, 

58 



With Gruach, his kind queen. 

("Most kind," the old King Duncan said, 

Before he lay in his last bed.) 

The Lady Gruach wears the crown, 
She wears the glistering golden gown, 
But yet she has not worn the ring 
That was the guerdon of the king. 
In the dark the diamond lies, 
Seen of no vassal's eyes. 

Nor any vassal's tongue can tell 

How, — when the spying Day is sped 

And sleeps with the safe dead ; 

When Gruach loosens her long hair 

Midnight-black on her shoulders bare, 

And sinks to the comfort of despair; 

At the witches' hour, when the shadows swell 

As the swinging cressets flare, 

And the small swart crickets harp and harp 

On the tune remembered, torturing-sharp, 

And the sobbing owlets wake, — 

The diamond in the dark 

Draws, draws her, like the spark 

In the head of a deadly snake. 

Then will she sit, and dully stare 
On the cold diamond's serpent-glare; 
Her lip is fallen, she does not stir, 
Her life is sucked into the gem ; 
It is as though the Powers malign 
Had made with mystery in the mine 
A thing to be like the soul of her: 
It was a jest to them! 
All the light upgathered they 
That might have been a sunshine day, 
Broadcast blessing and heavenly boon, 
59 



Peace of even and power of noon ; 
Seized the rays with a spell unknown, 
Forced them into a core of fire 
Like the glede of a covetous desire, 
Shut them fast in the heart of a stone. 
And hard, and harder than the sword, 
They made the crystal, fiery-cored; 
On steel that oft had steel withstood 
Might it grave the word it would. 
A gem of beauty and of bale, 
A prisoned force in narrow pales 
Evil-perfect, pure of good! 
— So will she sit, till naked Morn 
Peers at the world with visage white 
Like a sleeper roused in fright, 
Aghast and most forlorn. 

What of the end? since end must be. 
She knows a skilled artificer, 
And he shall set in a dagger's haft 
The thing that is like the soul of her. 
When first she thought thereon, she laughed, 
And then she shuddered fearfully. 
Ah, what if Heaven no end will grant, 
Resolved in any heats of wrath, 
To that which for its symbol hath 
The unsubduable adamant? 
Ah, what if like a falling jewel 
The soul whose light was mocking-cruel, 
Through gulfs of loss unplummeted 
Should fall, and fall, forevermore, 
Fire of torment at its core? 
Oh, horrible and leaden dread! 
The grace of God blot out our sins ! 
— The women knock at the chamber door, 
The queen starts up, the day begins. 
60 



DEATH-TRYST 

(Shelley, 1822: Tennyson, 1892.) 

I 

One sailed an azure sea in fateful hour: 

A Youth, yet age had touched him, and he seemed 
Lovely and piteous, like a frosted flower. 

A Book was in his hand, a page that teemed 

With joy of beauty. (He who made it, slept 
Where o'er his heart the Roman violets dreamed.) 

Sailing, he smiled; a tryst his spirit kept; 

Thoughts lucent-pinioned did as psyches flit 
Across his summer dream; till on him swept 

The swift black storm, and Fate and Death did sit 
Betwixt its cloudy wings as down it bore; 

And he who read was rapt to him who writ. 
Twin stars they shine, one fame forevermore. 

A fire of funeral blazed, beside the sobbing shore. 

II 

One slept a sacred sleep, while golden lay 

Autumnal moonlight glorious on his bed, — 
Sleep ebbing deathward like a sea-drawn bay. 

A Book was in his hand, whence late he read 

Majestic words of that great Spirit that still 
Doth haunt by Avon April-garlanded. 

So sleeping, held he fast with fixed will 

His Master's Book; and all the night was peace, 
Bright peace on lawn and terrace, dale and hill. 
61 



Calm consummation, and most sweet surcease! 
That tryst of sovereign powers Death would not 
wrong, 
Shattering the bars with all-too-rough release, 

But softly dealt. — They rule in splendor long, 
Large lights, a moon and sun in England's heaven 
of song. 



62 



THE IRIS-BRIDGE 

That morn when men to one another said 
"Browning is dead in Venice," ere the thrill 
Of the tidings touched us, lo! our eyes beheld 
Strange portent flashed upon the winter sky. 
From hill to hill the jewel-splendid span 
Of the light rainbow leaped, transcendent joy, 
The brave bright delicate bridge, frail as a flower, 
Yet firm enough to bear the feet of Hope. 
— "Browning is dead," they told us; but our 

thoughts 
Followed along the aerial sunbuilt arch 
The onward quest of that still ardent soul. 
Could he be holden of death, who built indeed, 
Flinging his lyric faith across the vast, 
An iris-bridge for man while words endure? 



63 



DESIRE OF FAME 

O unapproachable glories of the night! 
You type not my desire : enough for me 
The vanished meteor's immortality, 

Brief memory of a moment touched with light. 



64 



ROSE-RENT 

Life! lordly giver and gay! 

I, for this manor of Time, 
Lightly and lovingly pay 

Rent with the rose of a rhyme. 



65 



THE FRIGATE-GHOST 

Yes, you may build her again 
As she was when she sailed the sea; 
She may bear the brave old name, 
And the harbors hail her the same; 
'Tis her semblance, it is not she! 
She is gone from our mortal ken. 

I know not how or when, 
But her spirit escaped away 
From the dock and the dull decay, 
From the uses of unprized age 
And the changes wrought of men; 
Like a wild sea-bird from a cage, 
Her soul took flight from the form 
To the tides that none can tame, 
To the restless fields of her fame, 
To the wet salt wind and the storm ! 

Somewhere she ranges free, 
Stately, a shape of light, 
Revisiting leagues of sea 
Illumined with glorious fight. 
She hangs like a lucent cloud 
On the coast where her guns spoke loud, 
In the gates of the Moslem proud, 
Till the Crescent grew faint with fright. 
Exultant she bounds on the brine, 
Tracing the course of the race 
When the ^Eolus held her in chase, 
And the Belvidere and the Shannon, 
And the Africa, ship-o'-the-line, 
With another, doomed to her cannon, 
To be blazoned in flame at the last, 



M 



When the grim sea-duel was done: 
God rest the souls that passed 
Ere the Guerriere's leeward gun! 
Ere the noblest flag on the sea 
Came down to the Stripes and Stars! 
Oh, the frigate-ghost, as she ranges free, 
Thrills yet through her spectral spars! 

Aye, the old pride stirs her still 
As she sails and sails at will; 
In her cross-trees memories nestle, 
Though she walks the wave a ghost. 
Well she minds the wary wrestle 
When her shot poured hot as lava 
On the shattered, stubborn Java, 
Off the dim Brazilian coast; 
And she haunts the moonlit seas 
Where her crashing broadsides broke 
Through the drift of silvered smoke 
While she waged a double battle 
In the waters Portuguese. 
Still the ghostly muskets rattle, 
And the old drums beat, beat, beat, 
Like a heart that will not die ; 
And the old fife whistles high, 
And the powder-scent is rank, 
And she feels on her hollow plank 
The old, dead heroes' feet! 

Ah, never sailor-man 

Has seen her where she ranges, 

Escaped from time and changes 

As only spirits can, 

Clear, absolute, and free! 

Yet, some stern hour to be, 

When a fight is fought at sea, 

6 7 



And the right of the fight is ours, 

And the cause of the right is failing, 

There shall rise a frigate sailing, 

A luminous presence paling 

Through the powder-cloud where it lowers ; 

Pale smoke from her side shall break, 

Pale faces over her railing 

Shall frown, till the foemen shake 

With fear and bewildered passion, 

Marking her old-time fashion, 

In the turrets of hostile powers; 

And then shall the rumor run 

Like a lightning from lip to lip, 

And shall leap from ship to ship, 

While the wounded gunner reels 

Again to his reeking gun, 

Touched with a magic that heals, 

Feeling this vision remind him 

That the strong Dead fight behind him: 

" 'Tis the ghost of Ironsides, 

Come back from the tameless tides, 

From the ocean-fields unbounded, 

Complete with her scattered spars, 

Manned with the shades of her tars, 

With the smoke of her guns surrounded, 

To succor the Stripes and Stars!" 



68 



FAIR ENGLAND 

White England shouldering from the sea, 
Green England in thy rainy veil, 

Old island-nest of Liberty 
And loveliest Song, all hail! 

God guard thee long from scath and grief! 

Not any wish of ours would mar 
One richly glooming ivy-leaf, 

One rosy daisy-star. 

What! phantoms are we, spectre-thin, 
Unfathered, out of nothing born? 

Did Being in this world begin 
With blaze of yestermorn? 

Nay! sacred Life, a scarlet thread, 

Through lost unnumbered lives has run; 

No strength can tear us from the dead; 
The sire is in the son. 

Nay! through the years God's purpose glides, 
And links in sequence deed with deed ; 

Hoar Time along his chaplet slides 
Bead after jewel-bead. 

O brother, breathing English air! 

If both be just, if both be free, 
A lordlier heritage we share 

Than any earth can be: 

If hearts be high, if hands be pure, 
A bond unseen shall bind us still, — 

The only bond that can endure, 
Being welded with God's will! 

6 9 



A bond unseen! and yet God speed 

The apparent sign, when He finds good; 

When in His sight it types indeed 
That inward brotherhood. 

For not the rose-and-emerald bow 
Can bid the battling storm to cease, 

But leaps at last, that all may know 
The sign, not source, of peace. 

Oh, what shall shameful peace avail, 
If east or west, if there or here, 

Men sprung of ancient England fail 
To hold their birthright dear? 

If west or east, if here or there, 

Brute Mammon sit in Freedom's place, 
And judge a wailing world's despair 

With hard, averted face? 

O great Co-heir, whose lot is cast 
Beside the hearthstone loved of yore! 

Inherit with us that best Past 
That lives for evermore! 

Inherit with us! Lo, the days 

Are evil; who may know the end? 

Strike hands, and dare the darkening ways, 
Twin strengths, with God to friend! 



70 



TO THE MEMORY OF RICHARD 
WATSON GILDER 

Again the summer days beside the sea: 
The billowing of the russet-feathered grass 
In the warm wind; the shadow of clouds that sail; 
The orange field-flower flaming like a torch 
To light all wings of wavering butterflies; 
The long wash of the everlasting wave, 
The same and not the same forevermore. 
Again the summer nights, a-throb with stars, 
And that clear Star, the glory of the Lyre, 
White-burning, hung at the high heart of heaven. 
Again the summer days, the summer nights, — 
All is as it hath been. 

Nay, not for those 
Who have felt the shadow fall of that strange cloud 
Which yet seems full of light, the shadow of death, 
Is aught as it hath been. The dark sea-line 
Solemnly deepens, and the sunset sweeps 
With graver splendors through its pageant-pomp. 

I know not why these meadows, yester-year, 
And these stark pines against the sunset-rose, 
And these young woods where haply one beholds 
In some brown pool the mirrored cardinal-flower 
Lovely and lonely, — why along these ways 
Sprang up so oft the sudden thought of him, 
A wayside joy; why memories of his song 
Floated upon the silvery thistledown; 
Yet near he seemed. And not less near to-day, 
Though all he loved, and sang of, gleams through 

tears, 
Fresh-haloed with the pathos of the thought 
That near or far we shall not see again 
Those luminous eyes whence looked his lyric soul. 
71 



Star of the Lyre! a spirit like to thee, 
White -burning, close to the high heart of heaven, 
We knew; a spirit as clear, with ardors pure 
Trembling to every touch of the divine 
Serene sphere-music. Such was he, our friend, 
Our singer; such is he, though mortal sense 
Be sealed. 

Now to his name I give this book, 
Reverent, as placing on an altar-stone 
A gift; though slight, not all unmeet — since he 
Served all his years a Soldier of the Light : 
From those first days when the brave gentle boy, 
In passion of service for the land he loved, 
Stood by the thunderous guns of Gettysburg, 
To those last days of service not less true 
In the loud streets and swarming human hives, 
The clangor and flare, and all the civic stress 
Of his beloved city, — his and ours, 
Where such as he may rear the City of Light. 



n 



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